The lack of any whipped air in kulfi, a traditional Indian treat made with boiled milk, disqualifies it as ice cream, but the densely frozen treat tastes a lot like it. Besides the popular mango and rose-flavored kulfi, the Little India destination offers unusual flavors such as rajbhog, a blend of saffron, pistachios, cashews, almonds and cardamom.

After retiring to Hawaii, Walter Lappert began a new career making ice cream using island-inspired flavors, like Kauai Pie, a melange of Kona coffee ice cream, macadamia nuts, coconut and fudge. This grass hut on the pier is also the place for shaved ice doused in tropical fruit syrups and "tiger's blood," which tastes suspiciously like fruit punch.

In Iran, saffron, lavender and cardamom are used for their medicinal and health benefits. Brothers Mashti and Mehdi Shirvani put these ingredients into their ice cream. They also make faludeh, a Persian dessert made with rosewater and rice starch noodles that dates to ancient times, into a sorbet.

At this Taiwanese snack shop, shaved ice dessert is the favorite. Fruit, rice-flour and other random items of your choice like almond tofu, grass jelly, flan and peanuts are hidden beneath the frosty heap mixed with condensed milk and topped with a syrup made with brown sugar.

Home of the revolutionary ice cream mochi, a sweetened rice flour dumpling with an ice cream filling, loft dwellers and local Nisei come to this Japanese confectionary shop for the mochi ice cream, Hawaiian snow cones, ice cream and traditional sweets.

At this Filipino export, Goldilocks serves up its version of halo-halo in a tall glass with mixed fruit, yams, tapioca, jello, red beans, evaporated milk and crushed ice topped with a heaping scoop of vanilla ice cream.